


lay your bones bare

by deadeyeboy



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Low Honor Arthur Morgan, M/M, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 11:09:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17806889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadeyeboy/pseuds/deadeyeboy
Summary: Alcohol and jealousy do not make for good bedfellows. After a hard night's drinking, Arthur gets it in his head that he ought to teach little Johnny Marston his place.





	lay your bones bare

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING
> 
> This is NOT a nice fic. John is sixteen years old. If you read the tags and the content warnings, and still go on to read it and get upset by what you've read, that is on YOU.

John is no stranger to pain. He has been beaten, whipped, stabbed, shot, drowned, strung up and damn near hung to death—and his body bears the scars of it all, pink-white ridges and valleys that map out every hurt he’s ever endured.

The black-and-blue ache beaten into his flesh is as familiar as his own name. As is the coppery taste of blood as it seeps from his broken nose. The throbbing of one of his eyes as it slowly swells shut.

His shoulders scream. They are twisted to their limit where they’re wrenched behind his back.

Worse, and far less familiar, is the pain in his lower back. In between his legs, hot and burning and sharp, like a knife sinking deep inside him.

But all of it is nothing compared to the consuming, crushing betrayal that squeezes at his chest like a vise, strangling the sobs in his throat before they can escape. To the nausea welling up in him like bile, to the turn of his stomach at every hot puff of sour whisky breath against his cheek.

To the cold wash of fear that shivers up his spine at the nasty chuckle that he feels more than hears. A dark, rolling rumble against his back.

“What’s the matter, Johnny?” John squirms as much as his weary body will let him. He flinches into the dirt and rotting leaves against the teeth scraping at his neck. “Ain’t you gonna squeal for Dutch to come save your sorry hide?”

John has never heard Arthur sound so cruel.

. . .

“Well _done_ , son!”

John ducks his head to hide his grin beneath the brim of his hat as Dutch claps him on the shoulder. “We’ll eat like kings for months off of this score!” Dutch’s voice is throaty with cigar smoke. His eyes glitter in the firelight, and his fingers press into the meat of John’s shoulder. John’s chest swells near to bursting with pride and something else he can't identify.

Nothing makes him feel like more of a man than Dutch’s praise.

Still, he feigns modesty, like Arthur or Hosea might. “Weren’t nothin’ much,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Just in the right time an’ place, picked up a decent tip.”

The laugh Dutch lets out is deep and rolling and John thinks he can almost feel it in his bones. “Don’t belittle yourself like that!” John isn’t sure what ‘belittle’ means, so he just ducks his head again. “You did a great thing for us—” He gestures to where the rest of the gang is gathered round the campfire, most of them too involved in drinking and laughing at their own crude jokes to pay Dutch and John much mind. “And I think that kind of initiative ought to be rewarded!”

He pulls John close into a half-embrace. John has only a moment to try and identify the hot rush that fills his belly before Dutch is pressing a heavy bottle against his chest.

John blinks down at it, fumbles with it. “But Hosea says I ain’t old enough—”

Dutch waves a hand dismissively as he digs into his waistcoat for a new cigar. “Nonsense. You’re, what, sixteen already—practically a man! And I think we can all agree that you’ve earned it, son,” he says, clipping the cigar. He does not notice or simply ignores the way Hosea glares at him from across the campfire. “Now drink up! Put a little hair on your chest.”

John has had beer before. Gotten drunk a few times before—at least, what he thinks must’ve been drunk, a pleasant buzzing and floating in his head, in his arms and legs. An inability to control the volume of his laughter, or what he laughed at. It was nothing like the stumbling, belching stupor Uncle fell into. Nor did it give him any inclination towards the hair-thin temper it lent to Mac and Davey, snapping at each other like coyotes over the smallest scraps of meat.

Hosea always told him liquor would rot his brain, and watching them now, bickering and jostling each other over nothing, John believes it. That doesn’t stop him from popping the cork and taking a long hard pull from the bottle, same as he’s seen Arthur do countless times before.

Immediately he knows he’s made a mistake. His eyes go wide as his chest seizes. He’s just swallowed liquid fire, and it burns furrows down his throat and deep into his chest, pooling in his belly like molten iron. His cheeks burn almost as bad as his stomach as he coughs and sputters and chokes. Dutch is smacking his back hard enough to hurt, but the sting is completely drowned out by a hot rush of shame.

They’re all laughing at him. Even Hosea, who’s usually kind enough not to laugh when John does something stupid—which is often—is chuckling into his fist. John’s eyes sting, and it’s not entirely to do with the drink. He blinks hard. He'd never live it down if he started crying like some snot-nosed kid.

Dutch’s hand at his back, rubbing gently now, is soothing enough that John is able to swallow the lump in his throat. “It’s alright, boy. We’ve all had our first.” Though laughter catches at the the edges of his voice, his tone is kind. The urge to sink into the ground and disappear forever fades, ever so slightly. “Now go and have a sit down, get something to eat. And take it easy on that bottle, John!”

John ducks away with an awkward sense of gratitude, shuffling around the fire to take his usual spot between Hosea and Arthur. Hosea offers him a bowl of stew. He is still grinning a little guiltily.

It weren’t that funny, John wants to mutter, but he’s never been able to give Hosea any lip without feeling a considerable amount of shame, so he bites his tongue. The stew helps to soothe the bubbling in his belly. After a few spoonfuls, he feels brave enough to give the bottle a cautious nip. He can’t help the way his lips pull into a grimace—he’s never tasted anything quite so horrid—but now he knows what to expect, he swallows it down easy enough, burn and all.

“Sure you don’t want milk instead?” Arthur says, taking a long pointed drink from his own bottle. He laughs as John grumbles and shoves him.

“As if your first drink was any better,” he shoots back.

Arthur starts to say something, but Hosea clears his throat and talks right over him. “You might even say it was worse,” he says cheerfully. Arthur’s smirk quickly wilts into a dismayed scowl. John leans in. Conspiratory. “I think he was a little younger than you are now, and he’d thought it was a great idea—”

“Come on, Hosea,” Arthur complains. John would never have thought Arthur capable of _whining_ , but he’s drunk enough that it’s certainly close.

“—to pilfer a couple of bottles of bottom-shelf whisky from the general store in, where was it, quaint little town in Nevada—”

“Occident, I believe it was,” Dutch chimes in from where he’s come to stand behind John. John leans back into the big warm hand Dutch places on his shoulder.

“Dutch,” Arthur says. There’s an odd tone to his voice, a little sharper than just exasperation.

Dutch doesn’t seem to notice, just squeezing John’s shoulder and chuckling quietly as Hosea goes on.

“That’s right! Arthur here was so taken with one of the young ladies in town that he went to the trouble to try and wine and dine her—only, being the unwashed yokel he was, he didn’t quite understand how a nice society girl like her might be offended by the idea of being boozed up with the liquor equivalent of cheap wood varnish.”

Arthur groans and puts his face in his hands.

John has always loved the sound of Dutch’s laugh: rich and throaty, shaking his whole frame. He especially loves it when it’s directed at someone other than himself, for once.

“We found him—” Dutch has to pause a moment to collect himself, wiping at the corners of his eyes. “We found him face down in some farmer’s pig pen, three sheets to the wind and sicker than a dog.” He shakes his head. “Threw up all over my boots, moaning about how he’d never find happiness again.”

“You know,” Arthur grumbles, voice muffled by his hands, “it ain’t real fair to hold over a man’s head something he don’t hardly remember.”

“What else is family for?” Hosea says brightly. He pats Arthur’s back. “At least young John here can learn from your mistakes without having to share mud with the pigs himself.”

“Ain’t that lucky for him,” Arthur says, voice flat.

Eventually Dutch and Hosea’s attentions are drawn elsewhere—namely to Mac and Davey, who are for some reason rolling around in the dirt on the other side of the fire, snarling at one another like a pair of mad dogs—leaving Arthur to sulk in silence while John gives the bottle another try. A bigger mouthful this time, like a man would.

It is god-awful and leaves him feeling more than a little queasy. He doesn’t understand why anyone would _want_ to drink something this bad, but if Arthur can do it without blinking, John can too. Give or take a few wretching grimaces.

“Slow down a little, young feller,” he hears someone chuckle to one side, maybe Uncle.

John ignores him.

Six painful mouthfuls later, John is beginning to understand. The camp swims headily around him. He is loose and sluggish all over, like he’s just woken up from the best night’s sleep of his life. He’s at once incredibly heavy as well as disconnected from his body; his head floats somewhere high over his shoulders.

His cheeks hurt and his eyes burn. It takes him a moment to realize he’s just been grinning wide-eyed at the fire for who-knows how long. He looks up, marveling at the after-image of the flickering flames, and catches Arthur staring at him in some sort of grudging amusement.

“You feelin’ good there?” he asks.

“I never tasted anythin’ so bad in my life,” John says brightly. His tongue feels fat in his mouth, his words stringing together. Arthur snorts loudly and drinks deeply from his own bottle.

“Skinny little twig like you was bound to be a lightweight.”

John frowns, pouting a little, but he scoots a little closer to Arthur, filling the gap that Hosea left on the log until their thighs are flush. Arthur scowls at him, but at least he doesn’t move away.

“The train job went pretty good, huh?” John says. He can’t tell if his voice is too loud or too quiet.

Arthur grunts. “Sure. No one got shot.”

That isn’t exactly what John is looking for. “I. You—D’you think I did okay?”

Arthur looks away then. John isn’t sure if he’s watching Dutch scold a recalcitrant, dust-covered Mac and Davey or just glaring off into the darkness.

“Don’t you already get enough praise from Dutch an’ Hosea?”

John glances up, startled. That had been a god-honest growl from Arthur. He’s _angry_.

John doesn’t know why. Usually after a job, Arthur is all too happy to give him some sound advice about how he did. Mostly it’s venomous barbs poorly disguised as criticism, but sometimes he really does give John solid instruction on how to improve his aim, or his horseback riding, or his demeanor.

And sometimes, yes, there’s praise. Generally gruff and fleeting, but it never fails to make John warm and flush with pleasure.

Besides, this was the first train job John had been allowed to come along on. Granted he’d been saddled with Davey as part of the clean-up crew, but he’d thought he’d done okay, kept his cool even with bullets whizzing past his head.

But John doesn’t know how to say any of that. He has never been good with words. He’s especially poor with them in the current state he’s in, shaping his mouth around nothing.

“I—I just thought. You—”

“You thought I’d give you another pat on the head for doin’ the bare minimum?” Arthur barks out a harsh laugh. “You get any more of those and you’ll turn into a dog.”

John bristles. Dutch says he has what's called a 'hair-trigger temper,' and John thinks he can feel it start to tinder-strike hot in his chest. “That ain’t fair,” he says, fighting to keep his voice even.

Another laugh. The bottle in Arthur’s hand sloshes as he twists in his seat, prodding John’s chest with a finger. “I’m just speakin’ the truth, boy. All those two do is coddle you, pat you on the ass an’ tell you what a _good_ little pup you is.”

John is clutching his own bottle between his knees so hard that his knuckles are turning white. He has only been in a fist fight with Arthur once. It had been started and done in about five seconds, Arthur calmly holding him by the scruff like he were nothing more than a rag doll. John’s bigger now, but still just as scrawny, and reasonably he knows he’d never stand a chance against someone as seasoned a brawler as Arthur. But drunk as he is, his anger and hurt are starting to outweigh his common sense.  
  
Arthur is still talking, louder now, slurring. “Little Johnny Marston, the golden boy, an’ for what? Don’t hunt, don’t hardly do no chores, can’t hold his liquor, can’t even swim—”

“Dutch says I’m a better shot than you ever was!” John snaps back before he can stop himself, letting the bottle drop to the ground with a _thunk_ so he can ball his hands into fists. His face is hot and his eyes are stinging with what he refuses to acknowledge as tears. “Says I’m faster, too, and a better learner—”

“Listen here, you little shit,” Arthur snarls. The breath stutters in John’s chest as Arthur grabs a fistful of his shirt and drags him forward. He reels his other arm back, and John flinches, sure he’s about to be knocked cold—

“Arthur, that’s _enough_!” Dutch’s voice is a roar. John’s blood turns to ice in his veins. He thinks he sees his own terror reflected back at him in Arthur’s face. Arthur lets go of his shirt, and John almost falls over backwards. “What in the _hell_ do you think you’re doing? Mac and Davey’s one animal, but I expected better of you.”

Arthur is ashen-faced, resolutely looking anywhere but Dutch’s face as he gets to his feet. “It— It weren’t like that, Dutch.”

“Then explain to me exactly what it _was_ like, Arthur.”

“I….” Arthur is swaying in place. Sweat glistens on his brow. He looks about a gentle breeze from toppling over.

He never does explain himself. Instead he turns on his heel and makes a break for the treeline, as fast as a staggering walk will carry him off into the darkness.

He takes the bottle with him.

“Arthur!” Hosea calls after him, making as if to follow, but Dutch catches him by the arm.

“Let him go. He needs to cool off a little,” he says. “I’ll have a word with him later.” Hosea looks reluctant, glancing after Arthur’s retreating back, but eventually he sighs and nods.

John slowly turns back to the fire, anger warring with the rising embarrassment in his throat. Especially when he notices that everyone is staring at him. Arthur had been speaking pretty loudly towards the end, he thinks.

And himself right back.

It’s a relief when the others slowly drift back into their own conversations, if a little more subdued than before. John stares down at the bottle at his feet. He's not so sure he feels like drinking anymore.

He almost jumps when Dutch pats his shoulder. “You alright, son?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly John wishes he weren’t so drunk. He feels all out of sorts, and a little dizzy. “I didn’t mean to fight with him, Dutch, we was just—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Dutch’s hand slips up to the back of John’s neck, squeezing gently. John shivers. Some of the tension seeps out of his shoulders. “Arthur’s just been having a hard time lately, what with that terrible business with Eliza and Isaac.” John furrows his brow, opens his mouth to ask, ‘Who?’ but Dutch keeps talking over him. “He loves you, John, he really does. Just has a hard time showing it sometimes.”

“I guess,” John mumbles. Dutch’s hand stays for a minute, kneading gently, before it slips away. John misses it.

“Just try to enjoy the rest of your night, son,” Dutch says.

John offers him what is probably not a convincing smile, but Dutch leaves him be, going back to join Hosea.

John is content to brood for the rest of the night, but the others don’t let him. Bessie nudges his shoulder and flashes him a kind smile as she invites him into whatever she was talking about with Annabelle. Something about the four new states the government had invented in the last week or so—“I’d like to go to Washington someday,” Bessie say, a little wistfully—but he isn’t really paying attention. He doesn’t give two shits about the states.

The conversation Davey and the other men drag him into is a little more colorful, each man comparing the whores he'd had in the local town. John couldn’t properly contribute to conversation if he tried, woefully inexperienced as he is, but maybe they’re feeling a little sorry for him because they don’t even rib him about it.

So he just laughs with them, and spouts drunken bullshit, all of it nonsense and most of it mean, and feels a little more like a man.

A little more like Arthur.

The moon sits high in the sky by the time the fire finally starts to die out and the cold nip of the winter breeze sends folks stumbling for their tents. John stands up and nearly falls over. The ground lurches sickenly beneath his feet. He begins to weave in the vague direction he thinks his tent might be, but a familiar ache low in his belly sends him out into the woods instead. Tree branches snag at his clothes. He curses as a gnarled root almost sends him sprawling. He doesn’t remember the woods here being so close, so very determined to trip him.

His own clumsy, crashing footsteps drown out the crunching of leaves a little ways behind him. Following him. He might have noticed, were he a little more sober.

He isn’t, though. Instead he finds a suitable tree and relieves himself against it with a groan. He presses his forehead against the smooth bark and feels a little sick.

For a few minutes he just stands there, feeling sorry for himself and mindlessly fiddling with his cock. He squeezes it briefly, wondering; the sensation is oddly muted, distant from the rest of him. It still feels nice to tug a little at the silky skin, though he thinks it’s the texture of it that’s pleasing more than anything.

“Havin’ fun?”

John squeaks and stuffs himself away so fast that it hurts, spinning around and groping for the gun at his hip.

It’s Arthur. John swallows, audibly enough that Arthur snorts at him even in the state he’s in. The bottle of booze in his hand is empty.

“You ever hear of privacy, Morgan?” he says, voice steadier than he feels.

Arthur raises his eyebrows and scoffs, lifting his hands in mock affront. “‘Cuse me, your highness,” he slurs. “Didn’t realize you was too high and mighty to piss near the likes of me.”

“Arthur,” John says unhappily. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Maybe I don’t know much of anything anymore.” Arthur takes one listing step forward, then another. John doesn’t realize he’s backing away until his back hits the tree.

For some reason, that makes his temper flare. He bares his teeth like a cornered animal. His fingers twitch at his holster, even though he knows he’d rather eat his own bullet than ever raise a gun to Arthur. “What’s your problem?”

“I ain’t got a problem.” The grin on Arthur’s face is the meanest thing John’s ever seen. “I think it’s you who got a problem.” He tosses the bottle away as he closes in. John does his best not to cower, but it’s difficult when Arthur is getting right in his face like he is now. His breath is horrid, sharp as kerosene as it washes over John’s face.

“Back _off_ , Arthur,” John snarls, raising his hands to shove him away, but Arthur beats him to it. He seizes the lapels of John’s coat and slams him back against the tree. The breath rushes out of John’s lungs.

“Little John,” Arthur drawls, drawing out the _i_. He’s so close that John can feel each puff of air against his lips. “You know, I helped raise you too, boy. Least you could do is show me a little respect.” His voice is such a rough growl than John has to strain to understand him. “But I suppose you’re too good for me now. Dutch’s little prize pony, an’ hardly no effort involved.”

“That ain’t fair, Arthur,” John hisses out. “I—I never said nothing like that, you—”

He’s cut off as Arthur wraps a hand around his neck, squeezing hard enough to stop the air in his throat. Distantly he can hear Arthur chuckle, but it’s drowned out by the rushing roar of blood in his ears. By the mad panic building in his chest like a scream.

Other than Dutch, John never lets anyone lay a hand on his neck. Not if he can help it. Arthur knows this. He was there when Dutch cut him down from the tree he’d been hung from as a boy of no more than twelve, shuddering and blue in the face. He was there when Hosea gave him the little red scarf to cover up the raw ring of flesh around his neck, the scarf that John wears like an emblem of safety and refuses to go anywhere without.

His fingers are slipping underneath it now, pressing into the scar left by the noose with a careless cruelty John has only ever seen directed at other people. He must be able to see the feral terror in John’s eyes, and yet he just squeezes tighter. “And why’s it they coddle you so?” Arthur’s voice sounds distant, as if he’s underwater. “What makes you so damn special?” His slitted eyes bore right John’s wide rolling ones, as if he might be able to find the answer he’s looking for there.

He loosens his grip, just slightly. John gags on the sudden rush of air. He draws ragged breath after ragged breath, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

“I-I’ll— I’ll kill you, Morgan, let me go!” he chokes out. Arthur hums and takes that as what it is: an empty threat. He doesn’t even seem to notice John’s hands pulling frantically at his arm, nails leaving gouges in his skin.

“Y-You know what I think it is?” Arthur leans in to whisper into John’s ear as if divulging a secret, conspiratory. John can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest. “I seen the way Dutch looks at you. And I know you seen it too. How he touches you.” John goes utterly still, rigid, as one of Arthur’s hands slip down his back, over the curve of his ass. He gropes him, fingers digging meanly into John’s flesh. “I think it’s that pretty little girly body you got, under all that dirt and grease—”

Arthur reels back with a grunt as John slams his forehead into his face. He clutches at his nose. Blood gushes from between his fingers like a fountain. John is too busy wrenching himself out of Arthur’s hold and darting away into the trees to feel guilty about it.

It doesn’t occur to him that he ought to be heading for camp, not away from it. At least not until it’s too late.

He trips over his own feet and goes toppling to the ground. It wouldn’t have mattered what direction he’d gone, he thinks, dazed; he can hardly walk, let alone tell north from south. He starts to push himself up only to be crushed into the dirt as Arthur clambers on top of him. A shout dies in his throat as Arthur straddles his back and seizes a fistful of his hair; white hot stars explode across his vision as Arthur slams his face into the ground. He can hear the crunch of bone inside his head as his nose breaks. Rotten leaves flood his open mouth.

Arthur lifts his head again and John spits them out, bracing for pain, but Arthur just claps a hand over his mouth with his other hand.

Distantly, he realizes that Arthur is expecting him to scream for help. It hadn’t even occurred to John that he could; he knows he won’t. He would never rat Arthur out like that, not even for something like this.

Above him, Arthur is panting hard. “You, you been spoiled far too long, boy,” he says, breathless. “I know what the men really want from you.” John can feel it then, the hard hot press against ass. “‘Sides, I was your age when I started gettin’ on my knees myself. Might as well be the one to break you in.”

An angry sob wells up in John’s throat before he can stop it. He writhes and twists beneath Arthur, wriggling uselessly in the dirt, but Arthur far outstrips him in both size and strength, and John isn’t coordinated enough to try to slip his grasp. He’s trapped. The truth of that makes his chest seize in pure icy fear.

“Arthur, stop,” he grits out, turning his head to try and look Arthur in the eye. But Arthur’s head is down as he works at John’s belt, sliding it out of the loops with the slick whisper of leather. John tries again. “Arthur,” he says. His voice wavers. He’s not too proud to beg, he decides. “Arthur, _please_. Stop.”

For half a second, he thinks it works. Arthur stills above him. For half a second, the only sound in the woods is that of Arthur’s loud, rough panting and John’s quick, panicked breaths.

Then John’s choking back furious tears as Arthur yanks his shirt out of the back of his pants and shoves his hand up the back of it, calluses dragging at John’s skin.

“You’re too damn skinny,” Arthur mutters. “What the hell we been feedin’ you?” The concern in his voice juxtaposed with the roughness of his hands yanking John’s pants down around his thighs is almost enough to send John into hysterics.

Seams pop beneath Arthur’s fingers. John’s temper snaps along with them. With a high-pitched snarl he twists and throws his elbow back, hoping to catch Arthur in the face. His heart sinks when Arthur catches it easily, as if he were expecting it. Then he cries out as his arms are twisted behind his back. The angle is too severe. The bones in his wrists grind together beneath Arthur’s tightening grip.

“Keep still, you little brat,” Arthur growls, real low in John’s ear. An involuntary shiver runs up John’s spine. Arthur is almost fully draped over his body now, crushing him with his weight. “More you fight it, more it’s gonna hurt.”

John’s ashamed to feel tears dripping down his cheeks, breath hitching in his chest. “Aww. What happened to big, tough John Marston?” Arthur chuckles. He leans in so close that John can feel his lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “I thought you was too good for me, boy. You gonna give in so easy to someone as low-down as me?”

“I didn’t— I never— Arthur!”

John whimpers and bucks at the rough pads of Arthur’s fingers pressing at his asshole. Arthur hushes him and leans back for a moment. John hears him spit; his eyelids flutter shut as something hot and wet drips over his hole.

“Look at you. So tight an’ small down here.” Another nasty chuckle. “Don’t worry. That ain’t gonna last long.”

Then John’s squealing as Arthur screws a finger into him without warning. It burns like fire, like whisky, and every instinct in John’s body is screaming at him to get away from it, to push it out, but he isn’t going anywhere and Arthur is unrelenting.

“Hang on, hang on, I got somethin’ you’ll really love.” Arthur forces in another finger, uncaring as he scrapes up John’s insides. Just when John’s sure it can’t get much worse, Arthur crooks his fingers forward, searching.

John’s jaw drops. His back arches. Arthur’s pressing down, firm and insistent, against _something_ that forces John’s toes to curl in his boots, his eyes to roll back in his head. It feels like a string being pulled taut inside him, from the tip of his cock to deep in his belly. Warm bursts of unwanted pleasure rush up his spine with every push of Arthur’s fingers.

“Stop, stop, stop,” he says, pleading, demanding. To his surprise, Arthur does just that. He pulls his fingers free with a wet noise and leaves John to clench around nothing.

“You’re built for this,” Arthur says. He sounds almost sorry.

John doesn’t have much time to dwell on what that means. Arthur shifts with the rustling of fabric, and then John goes stock still as something stiff and heavy bobs against his ass. It’s brand-hot and feels impossibly large. There is no way in _hell_.

John opens his mouth to try one last time to get Arthur to see reason through the haze of anger and alcohol clouding his mind, but instead Arthur stuffs something between his teeth. His own belt, John realizes.

“Better than bitin’ your tongue off,” Arthur says by way of explanation.

Then he forces himself inside.

John had been stabbed in the gut, once, when he was about fourteen years old. He’d tried to pickpocket an old drunk in the saloon of some podunk cattle town, and he’d gotten a knife to the stomach for his trouble. He doesn’t remember much of that night beyond little bits and pieces. Dutch’s face swimming above him, as close to tears as John has ever seen him. Arthur and Hosea, speaking to him softly in turn, hands gentle as they lifted him. The way the handle of the knife had waggled back and forth almost hypnotically as John was jostled.

But mostly he just remembers the splitting, searing agony that coursed through his belly like a poison, as though he were being rent in half.

It’s like that now, he thinks hazily as Arthur shoves in and in, stuttering forward with sharp little jerks of his hips because it's too dry to push in all at once. It's like he's being split in two. It’s somehow less and worse than the gutwound all at once; it’s not as painful, but John has never felt so violated in his entire life.

He’s never felt so _betrayed_.

Arthur is his brother. Since the day he and Dutch and Hosea saved him from the noose, John has looked up to him as a pillar of safety, of kinship. Of strength and of power. One of the most dangerous men in the West, and he’s on John’s side. He’s _family_. He would trust Arthur with his life.

Even now, he knows that will never change. Maybe that’ll be the death of him.

He’s bitten almost clean through his belt by the time Arthur gets fully seated. He’s grunting against John’s neck, setting his teeth into the skin there and laughing when John flinches away.

“God damn. God _damn_ , you’re tight.” Arthur is puffing like a steam engine. Then he starts to pull out. John screams around the belt. Arthur might as well be dragging sandpaper against his insides. He can feel himself tearing seam by seam, can feel the moment blood starts to seep out of him, dripping down his balls.

It grows tacky and thick as Arthur fucks him. It doesn’t make it any easier, or feel any better. Rather the pain just plateaus into something enormous and raw that threatens to overwhelm John entirely, like the deafening roar of a waterfall. His body begins to go slack as adrenaline ebs from his system, shock and exhaustion hitting him all at once.

Arthur groans low and long above him. “There you go. There you go,” he says, like he’s speaking to one of his horses. “Ease up. That’s good, Johnny.”

John hates the way the praise makes his chest tight with warmth. He grits his teeth against it, that dying spark of fury in him flaring back to life.

He spits the belt out. “You’re a son of a bitch, Morgan,” he croaks out. “Y-you're supposed to be my brother, I _trusted_ you—”

Arthur grabs John by the hair and slams his head into the ground. Again, and again, until he goes limp. John blinks slowly, darkness creeping into the edges of his vision. He spits, weakly; his mouth is pooling with blood.

Worst of all, he can no longer bite back the sobs that well up from deep in his chest and shake him to his core.

“What’s the matter, Johnny?” Teeth worry at his neck. “Ain’t you gonna squeal for Dutch to come save your sorry hide?”

They both know John never would, whether out of idiotic pride or blind loyalty. John just hiccups and squeezes his eyes shut. He wishes Arthur would just knock him cold.

Arthur lets go of his arms, probably because he can sense the fight has left John entirely. His hands brace on the ground on either side of John’s head, fingers curling in the dirt. He’s driving into John faster now, rhythm growing ragged and frantic. For a short while the woods are utterly silent save for Arthur's bellowing, uneven breaths and the quick slap of skin against skin. They sound like a pair of wild animals, John thinks.

Then Arthur hisses under his breath: “What’s he see in you, boy?” He grunts, and buries himself deep. “What’s he see in you that he don’t see in m-me—”

He stutters off. His cock jerks and pulses inside of John, coating his torn-up insides with hot spend. It seems to go on forever.

Finally, Arthur slows. His hips roll in gentle little circles as he softens, almost tender. He probably doesn’t realize he’s doing it.

John moans softly when Arthur finally pulls out, seed leaking from his hole in a hot gush. John feels like he’s just been trampled by a horse. He’s raw all over, like an exposed nerve ending. Oozing like a rotten wound.

He stays right where he is as Arthur slowly pushes to his feet. He doesn’t think he could stand if he tried. Rustling fabric, the clink of a belt buckle. Then a moment of terrible stillness.

“John?” Arthur’s voice is oddly subdued, hoarse. The scrape of stubble, like Arthur is dragging a hand over his face. “Shit.”

A beat. Then the crunch of leaves underfoot as Arthur turns and walks away, his steps staggering and uneven. Blind drunk.

John closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, the moon is low on the horizon. He’s shivering, deathly cold and feverishly hot all at once. He pushes himself up onto his knees. His arms tremble beneath his weight as he empties his stomach onto the ground.

Then he rocks back onto his heels, wipes his mouth on his sleeve. Closes his eyes and tilts his head back for just a moment. A gentle breeze whispers across his dirty, tear-streaked cheeks.

Unsteadily, he gets his feet underneath him. He pulls his pants up, ignoring the deep teeth marks in his belt as he does it up. He sways in place for a moment, wavering.

Then he turns and limps back towards camp, towards the dull orange glow of the dying fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Might turn this into a series? Let me know if you want to see a fix-it of sorts, maybe several. Definitely want to go more into the Dutch/John angle, or John as the gang whore. And patch things up with Arthur, as much as they can be.


End file.
